Virus alert

Today there was an all-out-emergency I got called on at lunch because someone had an extra space in their system icons tray and they were very suspicious that a virus was hiding in their system icons, masquerading as a blank.

I'll just let that sink in for a minute or so: a virus masquerading as a blank...

Time to be disconcerted

Today I was alerted by 2 perturbed staff that the time pushed to their PCs via my server and the time displayed on the phone system was out by TWO whole minutes since the last time change!! Oh the outrage if someone caught them going for lunch on the phone time and coming back at the PC time, they'd get two whole minutes extra of lunch! On top of that outrage they had noticed that the time clock for the back of the shop was also out a few seconds. Nothing I could be doing would be as important as fixing the time! Because by the next time change it would be as much as five or six minutes out!

And here I thought I was anal.

SMS

Marcella writes:

There is a woman sitting across from me wearing ankle weights with hot pink straps. She also has a tinkerbell bag.

Red Robins

My aviary friend, on his deck:
There's Red Robins making a nest under my deck
M: neat! they're just called robins you know...
A: Yes, but these specific ones are red
M: oh ok! i do like the red ones best

Wild Pelicans

Texting a friend, camping in the woods:
M: How's the forest?
A:There's WILD pelicans out here!
M: as opposed to zoo pelicans?
A: exactly!

Going camping

Three dudes at Canadian Tire stocking their shopping cart with everything (and I mean bare necessities) they'll need to go camping. Tent, sleeping bags, hot dog sticks, cooler, just about everything you could imagine. They got through the tills ahead of me and when I got to my car I realized that I had parked next to them. Everything they'd purchased was already stuffed into the trunk and the guy riding shot gun was in the passenger seat with a "Hawaiian Breeze" fan in a box on his lap.

Hawaiian Breeze, surely I thought, there is no way the product could live up to the hype.

Everything else they'd purchased was camping gear, so I'm not sure how the fan fit in. I am really curious about it.

Random Text

I have recently fallen in love with Google Reader, and on my reader I am subscribed to a site that posts witty, hilarious, random and often obscene text messages. But random. That's the word we'll focus on because it reminds me of the story of how I found out my cousin in Vancouver had gotten a new cell phone number.

M and I both work in downtown and often share stories of the strange things that we witness on our way to or from work or at lunch. So I text her the following:

"There is this particularly aggressive homeless man that always stands on the same corner holding his crotch. I have no idea what it's about but I am afraid."

In response I get: "Who is this?" which actually wasn't all that surprising because I haven't texted Monika in a long time (we usually converse over email.)

I say: "haha, this is Marcella"

"wrong number i am assuming? :) "

I respond (still thinking it's my cousin and assuming she doesn't have my cell phone programmed in hers so she doesn't recognize my number... obviously not very quick to catch on): "Not if you're my cousin M!"

"nope i'm michael."

At this point I have to apologize as profusely as I can over texting and try to explain what would be a rather disturbing text from a complete stranger. Luckily he had a good sense of humour about it and texts back: "no problem it's not every day i get random entertaining texts"

Upon further investigation, turns out M had gotten a new number two years before this texting happened. Like I said.... we usually only do email.

It's a good thing I actually don't know Michael or even live in the same city as him because otherwise it would have been REALLY embarrassing.

Un-Athleticism

Last night we were kicking the soccer ball around the back yard and now my toe is kind of swollen and really hurts this morning. So much so that I had to wear my ugly klunky comfortable shoes to work today. I am REALLY terrible and uncoordinated at things like sports.

It makes me laugh because Reinhard is so patient and tries to teach me how to do these things better. I told him it was training for him to teach our future kids how to kick balls around. He laughed and said he really hopes our kids are more coordinated and athletic than I am. Hahahahahahaha! It's especially funny because I can tell he's actually very concerned about it!

Did I get tele-transported to the 1950s?

On Friday I got home from work before my husband and the doorbell rings. I answer and it's the APX Security System salesman that I've seen walking around the neighborhood that week.

"Is the home-owner in?" he asks. "Uh-huh." I look expectantly at him for a few moments until I realize he's waiting for me to go get the owner. "It's me." I say and he gets all flustered as if he's never seen someone young owning a house before. But then before I can tell him I'm not interested he quickly launches into his spiel and I can't get a word in for a couple minutes until he asks me how many exterior doors I have. He's informed me that "exterior doors are the most common entry way for burglars to get into your house!" (WHAT??? NO Duh! Am I an idiot??)

"So how many exterior doors do you have?"

"Actually I'm going to stop you there because I'm not interested in your security system."

"Oh. Is it... Is it because your husband isn't home yet?"

I think to myself WTF!!

"NO, It's because I'm actually not interested in your security system. Not even a little bit"

"Oh. Well is there a time when I could come back again and speak to your husband?"

"No. I'm 99.9999% sure he is also not interested."

Huh? What year is it? I realize that I am a woman, but I am actually capable of making decisions. Seriously.

Snippy?

In my job, my coworkers and I tend to have to run after people to get information and sometimes people don't appreciate us all that much. Take for example the following response after reminding someone that they still hadn't send the required information requested on April 22nd:

"I apologize for the massive delay in getting you the data that you need to perform your job, we will shut-down and get on it right after the MANDATORY training that has been thrust upon us Monday. However, here in Cushing we do not hire staff that we do not have work for, and every one of us here has a full 40 hour plate of tasks every day. It is difficult, sometimes impossible to perform our task of keeping the DOT satisfied / pipeline running /attending mandatory meetings / training and then get to tasks that are beyond our job scope."

Tee hee. Snippy? I think maybe. I do of course feel bad for them as I know they are busy so maybe I will not yet point out that it is actually part of his job scope as the VP of Operations has made it part of his job performance review.

A list

I made a list of everyone that needs a new computer around here: Everyone.

HTH KTHXBAI!!!

Creating Noise

A: The good news is I didn’t get a ticket on the way to work.
M: ahahahahah
A: It’s hard to get a speeding ticket when you’re in bumper to bumper traffic, hitting every red light on the way to work.
M: yeah that's true. me too... I keep on being late to work. Everyone here shows up early and leaves late. It's so weird, it's like they like working or like their jobs.
A: Maybe it’s a cultural thing? :)
M: i guess huh? being German and all?
A: Yeah… you said, not me. A good work ethic is the backbone to a good economy.
M: HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH... true true! I just helped someone play a CD in their computer. It's a good thing we have an IT person on staff!
A: You can play cd’s on the computer now???
M: no you can't actually, they don't have a cord to plug into the machine.
A: Oh, like a cord from the computer to the speakers, or that thin little cable that goes from the cd drive to the sound card?
M: a cd is just a round disc, there is no cable on it, you have to buy a cd adaptor at Future Store fyi. Until then you can't use it for anything but coasters.

Little Boy, Dumb Parents

I am all for unique children's names, but my goodness some take it a little far. In the doctor's office last week a five year old came in with his mother, who announced the name to the receptionist, who promptly replied "huh?"

The little guy piped up in a 'whoo-hoo-I-know-how-to-spell-my-name-now-that-I'm-almost-through-kindergarden' way "TALON. T-A-L-O-N!"

D-U-M-B P-A-R-E-N-T

Bull

I'm loading programs from a CNC machine in the back that we're selling off and I find:
program number: 6969
program description: ED'S COCK RING

Good grief. I am loading a bunch of nonsense into the database on the fileserver. Ed's at least 70 years old.









We make weird things like nipples and ball catchers, but I'm calling bullshit on program 6969.

You vant vaaatt???

Home Depot. A beautiful and competent Eastern European lady helping me in the paint department... she'd magically matched a colour I brought in from a stick I'd used to stir an old can of paint and I was stoked -- someone who could seriously help me! I had another can of old paint I sort of liked but had not enough of to do a whole room. So I asked her since she could match colour off a stir stick if she could also find a CIL brand-colour in her computer called "Prism White".

"You vant vaaatt colour?" in total confusion.
"Prism white. PRISM white" I attempted to enunciate very clearly, but to be honest it's a weird word.
Aghast: "PRISON??? PRISON VITE?"
"No! no! Prism, P-R-I-S-M"
"SM?? Em?? You sure?"
"Yes, P-R-I-S-M, a prism is a crystal that reflects light..."

Hahaha, but prison white would be awesome too...


Someone who did speak English did post this sign and of course it made me laugh to consider my rooms decorum.














But not as much as this boob light... it's a Madonna (circa 1980s) boob light!

10 things I don't like at all

1. Computers. My life now is one giant fail.
2. Painting. This is the worst of all the home fixing things I can think of.
   
3. Standing in steel toed boots all day.
4. Spam from people you know.
5. Exercise.
6. People with no common sense.
7. Economic recessions.
8. People with no small-talk social skills.
9. Cell phones when they drop calls.
10. PowerPoint (exception: if used in cases of irony.)
    

10 things I like a lot

1. Brussel sprouts
2. Sunshine
3. Cats
   
4. Spring
5. Cheese of any kind
   
6. Flowers
7. Yarn
8. Books
9. My Blackberry
10. Being the boss of everything
    

Also not ok

After dinner to pick up the cheque. I mean, to pick up the cheque while you're say "I can expense this!"

And you trust me for this??

So over the last year I have been the Project Lead for a new system at work that will greatly increase the speed at which we can provide two of our department's service offerings. It has recently been put into production which is super exciting for me because I designed it all from scratch. The concept, logic and design came out of my head which I then transferred to pieces of paper and gave off to people to build it for me.

Now it is in production and it is saving other people literally weeks of time on every project they do. That in itself makes me pretty happy. It's like seeing your child become both the smartest and most popular kid at school.

And then I think "Whoa, someone actually trusted me to directly influence how three-quarters of a million dollars is spent?!?!?"

It is not ok

• It is not ok to blame shyness on having absolutely no interest in other people and letting them talk for an hour and a half until they're completely hoarse and not only want to kill themselves but you first.
• It is not ok to blame shyness on having no coping strategy for making small talk with other adults who seem to have a lot in common with you.
• It is not ok to say "I don't drink coffee" when someone asks you if you want to go for coffee. (what are you, retarded? It's a conceptual metaphor! I don't care what you drink!)
• It is not ok to say "I work" when someone asks you what you do.
• It's not ok to follow that with "Downtown" or "In an office" when someone says "Oh I meant where do you work?"
• It's not ok to call someone 6 months after they have told you they are "too busy" to see if they have more free time now. Too busy, I'm washing my hair, I'm just not that into you = you suck, please drop dead.
  

Lunch

I know I probably shouldn't, but I find it terribly amusing that our department's director brings juice boxes for lunch. I wonder if he has a spiderman lunch box too!

Weird

I received a response from Shaw today that the CRTC ordered that each household phone line must be provided a white and a yellow pages. Thank you for being choosing Shaw, you can take up your complaint with the CRTC and with Yellow Pages directly.

Awesome! Yellow Pages site and 1-800 is totally not helpful (you can order another copy but not opt-out) and the CRTC just lists the order for everyone to get a white and yellow pages. Whereby and Whereas it has been Decreed in 1984 that everyone should love a personal copy of Ye Olde Telephone Directory.

I guess I am not the only person who is stymied from going green by old technology printers scared whitless for their jobs and of course, our favourite to hate: the Government.

I did my part, I emailed both the CRTC and Yellow Pages in protest. I think you should too.

Happy Earth Day!

On the Shaw website:

Making a difference for our planet today.
What are you doing to help?
Make a difference with Shaw on Earth Day April 22, 2009.

Here's what I submitted:

Dear Shaw Cable, I would like to make a difference with Shaw on Earth Day April 22, 2009 by protesting the fact that I received a yellow pages and a white from you this past month. I would like to opt out of receiving this archaic and bulky monstrosity which is deposited directly into the recycling anyway. Thank you.

Filed: in the trash

Some jerk walked in off the street to fill out a job application form which we don't do... We want resumes just like every other place.

Well, he had one.

But only one so our receptionist was going to take a copy and he said she should make him about five copies. What the hell!!? I told him that we'd take one copy for ourselves and he can copy them on his own if he needs others.

I don't care about the 5 cents it costs to print plus paper but if you're trying to get a job maybe you should be prepared to make a good impression?? Here's a tip: don't piss off the receptionist. Or me, if I'm standing nearby.

I made her file it alright.

Cyan

Called a supply company for a toner cartridge for a colour printer and the woman said "Which colour do you need, there's black, 'cai-anne', magenta and yellow."

I actually giggled out loud then started coughing to cover it up. Maybe she thinks cayenne and cyan are the same colour? Anyhow, I was ordering plain ol' black.

Is it home time??

i figured out how to look at the DHCP logs today.
i figured out how to link the AD to my firewall.
i guess I can go home now.

:brainfull:

Reply All

So I am sitting at my desk when someone sends out a test email (subject line "test", blank message body) to test the bulk mailers that send emails to the whole organization. A legitimate email.

Then one guy replied all: "Did I pass the test??"
Then another woman also replied all: "I’m not sure why I received it."
Then someone else replied all: "Test? There was a test? Nobody told me! Aaaaaggghhhh………"

Then another guy replied all: "Be careful when replying “All” This e-mail went out to the entire organization. As did James’."
Which is really what everyone else was thinking. But then HE replied all.
Half a second later he recalled his message.

people are idiots. just fyi.

oh ya, and all this took place in less than 5 minutes.
Do people not think before sending out emails anymore?

Walking

I walked past a lady not very much older than me carrying a walkman.

Mix tape?

Probably!

Error

Sometimes you have to laugh when someone tells you they can't print and you go and click buttons and something as stupid as this error message is thrown by the program that everyone loves to hate:

yield

Yes I will yield the right of way to the lady driving the mini-van and eating a burger!

Shampoo

Remember when the word "shampooing" on the bottle would make us laugh uncontrollably?

Stupid IE

If you want to include a CSS hack for IE in your CSS then you must use /* IE Browsers */ comments, which is nothing like creating all your styles in a separate CSS and hacking it in your HTML

In your HTML it looks kind of like this: (please excuse the weird spacing around the comments, Blogger has issues with pointy brackets)

< ! --[if IE]>
Special instructions for IE here
< ! [endif] -- >

vs the much superior CSS inline:

img {
bottom: -1px; /* IE Browsers */
bottom: 0px;
}

See the if else?? No? Me either, but this took me a few days so I should probably write it down.

If I wanted a decaf I would order it.

PL: ok so I went and got coffees for everyone...
and there's always someone who can't friggin remember what they wanted and insists they had something else and wants your coffee.
Marcella: hahahaha
PL: so i'm drinking a decaf with 1 milk
wtf.
Marcella: you should make people write it down
PL: yeah we write it down but we should make them write it down so it's in their handwriting.
i wrote it down for this person and they always want something else.
what is wrong with people who don't have a standard drink?
Marcella: a lot
PL: PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT
Jimmy always gets a half French vanilla half coffee.
always.
so even though it's weird, it's always standard
Marcella: why are you getting coffees for ppl?
PL: I wanted an excuse to leave work for a bit, that's why I got coffees for people
Marcella: ah

Notice:

I would like all small town restaurants to know that Kraft Singles Slices are not a viable substitute to real cheese. Not ever.

Yesterday I had the misfortune to be served French Onion soup with a mozarella (if you can call it that) Kraft Slice melted on top. *Shudder*

I'd just like to say

Holy Potholes Batman!

On being cool

PL: so i ordered safety glasses from amazon and they are AMAZING
for one thing, they tint when I go outside.
for another thing, they look cool.
Marcella: hahahahahaha
you are hilarious
PL: seriously, I am so cool with my safety glasses and boots.

Oh wait.

On the Phone

I picked up the ringing phone and said "Maria calling" instead of "Maria speaking." Eeep! Luckily it was a vendor that looks like Tintin and drives an older Mazda like me. That he looks like Tintin has nothing to do with the story, but we talk, we are friendly. He made fun of me because it's obviously Monday.

Thin Client

On my desk, a thin client to try out in the shop.

"Hey! What's this neat thing??"
"Well, it's called a thin client, it's a computer without any movable parts."
"Sorta like a Mac hey?"
"...actually, no... what?"
"Sorta like a Mac, it's all one piece and it's real tiny and it's like a Mac."
"...actually, no. Nothing at all like a Mac."
"Well what I mean is that it's all thin and the screen is attached."
"...um, well it can be mounted on the backside of a monitor, but the monitor is still separate, so it's not like a Mac. What it really is like is a PC without any movable parts, no fan and the processing happens on the server, so you can't actually log into this thing, although it will seem like it, but it's really that you're logging into a session on the server."
"But what I'm saying is that it's small, like a Mac."
"Ok, you're right, it's small and exactly like a Mac."

Diana will kill me for agreeing.

How does this happen!?!?

-40.7 to -8??




I just told someone we couldn't do a fire drill today. I'm not sure if he was kidding or not.

-40 at 8am

Belated Christmas Present

I was sitting quietly in my cubicle at work on Feb. 23 minding my own business when the lady that distributes mail came up to me and gave me a package. I opened it up and found a Christmas/New Year's present from one of our vendors. It was a pottery mug with their company name on it along with my name.

It really is very nice, except that the mug is broken and my name is spelled wrong. Pretty sad considering I email with them all the time and they should know how to spell it. My co-workers Yanping and Ingrid each got one too but their mugs said "Lee Ann" and "Craig".

Up-do

I put my hair in an up-do today and everyone at work is complimenting me on how nice it looks.

Little do they know our hot water tank burst last night and the up-do is only a result of not being able to shower and wash my hair this morning.

Snow sucks

I'm going to have shoulders like a brick layer from hoisting the shovel over my head to perch all the new snow precariously on top of my recreation of the Alps.

In my purse

I've a habit of carrying things in my purse because they're handy. My sister does the same. I've got a little fold-up pliers-screwdrivers toolkit in mine and she's got a measuring tape among other things.

So then is it any surprise that occasionally I'll carry food stuffs? Today my lovely sister sent along some fresh baked bread for me. "Oh yummy!" I said, "good thing I've got butter in my purse!"

Thank you, here is a cookie (#).

We all expect everything to magically work every time all the time. So to be like no one else I would like to show my appreciation for IT help, here have another I ate way too many this morning.... (#).

Ew stink

In a fancy bottle at Winners:

Pecksniff's Mood Therapy Aromatherapy Lotion.

I checked it 3 times.

Adorable and hilarious

A four year old boy trying to lose his mother in Winners with a homemade arts & crafts-style sign hanging around his neck with the words "I'm special!"

Troubleshoot my internet pls!

Angrifying. People who get a hold of me:

1. at my parents house
   
2. after 10 pm
3. to troubleshoot their internets and emails
4. over the phone.

YES, of course if you used a capital letter in your password it matters!

Email invites

For a birthday party it's cool. But for a wedding?

Consider:

• the bride saves stamps
• she gets you to download the invite from a free file sharing site where you have to endure ads before you get to download
• then it turns out to be a powerpoint and we all know how evil powerpoint is (except when you are using it for irony)
• and then they ask for cash gifts instead of presents.
  

Today after work (and after my other work) I stopped at Safeway to pick up a lemon and a lime and a rice pudding and in the express lane was this older lady (not really old, but really stupid) who had a bill of $5.05.

So she scrounged in her purse and finally found her Club Card, but then she couldn't find her Airmiles, but then she wanted to pay the 5 cents in pennies and the 5 bucks on her gift card, but then her gift card was empty so she told the cashier "Well YOU PEOPLE should really look into that..." (but the cashier Had. Just. Swiped. It. Arg!!) and then she scrounged some more for a 5 dollar bill which she was sure she had in her purse and when she found it she started looking for her keys and when she found her keys she also found her Airmiles card which she still wanted credited... on my way out she was at the customer service desk getting The Mystery Of The Empty Gift Card looked into and the lady was telling her she must have spent it all. Luckily I had no business at the Customer Service Desk. Or else my head would have exploded.

Someone came into my office complaining that when he typed his words would randomly disappear... I had NO idea what in the world he was talking about. So he showed me.

Turns out he had NO idea that the Insert key has two different modes -- insert and overwrite. I'm explaining concepts to people I don't remember ever NOT knowing...

Today? Someone complained to me that it takes exactly 41 clicks of the mouse to complete some task in our system "and I don't mind telling you, Maria, that's about 41 clicks too many."

www.fmylife.com

>:( Like I care.

Tea, bacon and mustard.

Tea, bacon and mustard.
Those are all the things that have sullied my pants today.
It's been a good day.

Do you have a minute?

I love it when people say "do you have a minute to come to my desk to see something?" and they show me that their login has expired or account has been locked. And by love it, I mean it's not really something I need to see, since I can't fix it at your desk and since I can in fact fix it from MY desk where I was comfortably sitting and drinking my tea when you so rudely interrupted me.

Happily, I'm much getting better at saying "I'm not getting off my arse to come over there... what do you want?"

Annonymity

I'm pleased I'm still not findable.

Sir Spamalot

In my inbox:

Your bulge will be so noticeable you will have to wear a kilt.

hahahahahahhahahhahahahhahahaaaaa... this explains kilt wearing.

If you give a man a new photocopier Part II

If you give a man a new photocopier
chances are he will remember only a quarter of all that it can do,
but chances are he'll never remember how to do it on the new copier,
but chances are he'll remember exactly which 2 buttons did it on the old copier,
and chances are he'll hold it against you that now he can colour copy and do mixed media within the same batch, and collate and secure print or duplex scan images in full colour.

If you give a man a new photocopier,
well chances are you should just give up now because you'll never hear the end of it.

If you give a man a new photocopier

If you give a man a new photocopier,
chances are he'll use it for business purposes, but not often,
chances are he'll want to photocopy his ID, birth certificate and fax his insurance, and
chances are he'll have remembered nothing from the hour and a half introduction to the machine.
But after banging around the lid of the copier and kicking the equipment in the paper trays a few times you'll offer to show him how to use card shot and multi shot so he'll stop yelling and disrupting other people in the offices nearby.
If you show him how to use card shot and multi shot,
chances are he'll want to do it in full colour, and
chances are it'll take a few tries to get it right, and
chances are then finally he'll decide he could just scan himself the image in pdf.
If you show him how to use card shot and multi shot
chances are he'll just get the two mixed up anyway and you'll be back to the kicking and yelling and slamming.
So you'll offer to do it for him.
And chances are that's all he wanted in the first place.

Stupid jerk.

An overview and a summary.

I was sent a 80 page "overview" release document on the upgrade to the next version of a software we use. The "summary" was 193 pages.

It didn't have any pictures in it.

So I deleted it.

The internet.com is slow

Since Friday. This is somehow my fault, because I have been receiving calls about it even at home, where people have complained about low-seeded torrent files and ESSO pay-at-the-pump being unresponsive.

Turns out, at my shop, I'm sort of responsible for the internet being slow -- after 4 months in service our firewall logfiles were full (i.e. the internet was all bunged-up). Yup, we had a good purge and plunged out all that and now the internets are fast again!

Happy New Year!

What statue of limitations is there on saying Happy New Year? I thought surely the novelty has worn off by now... but no, sadly it has not. This is concerning for someone like me who often forgets the niceties in conversations, and especially in emails because I have a point and want to get to it before I forget why I'm emailing!

The plan:

The plan: picky eating as a form of weight control.

Man, I should write a book!!

That's gonna leave a mark

I ended up on the floor with my chair on top of me after trying to kick the cord of a dead printer out of the way and roll over it at the same time.

*ungeschickt* + headshake

I can't believe no one came running to rescue me, or at least point and laugh seeing as how the crash I produced was as loud as purposely throwing a chair against a wall... and we have cameras all over the office to catch just those sorts of moments!

>shhh!<

Disaster

After a happy week of cat-sitting we spent 15 minutes looking for the cat... calling to him and whistling and rattling his food. Finally we were searching with flashlights and ladders and looking in closets only to have the 4-year old say "what are you looking for? I put Turbo under the kitchen sink!"

Poor Turbo who, locked into a cupboard, didn't say a peep. Probably hoping not to be discovered so he wouldn't have to go home from his relaxing vacation!

I've got 2 words for that

On the evening of our presentation we were preceded by 3 groups. The first was mediocre (a web wizard) and the second a horrible, dark and slow (19 layers of flash!) and then a quite nice & well put together website. Then our presentation was followed by another group who wasted (four nights a week) x (5pm-10pm) at school and came up with a messy black design with a red scroll bar. That one in particular was horrific, never mind for all the extra time they put into it.

One of the groups concluding paragraph was so amazing I wrote it down to share with you:

"So to wrap up I would just like to share two words that sum up the website that we presented. The first is Security and the second is Diversity. First of all it is secure because we have implemented security. Secondly, and finally diversity because it is very diverse."

Coders do not excel at designing beautiful, easy to navigate websites nor at public speaking.

On Notice:

The entire Northside. You are dead to me! You may have a mall or two that are interesting and you may have nice people but I hope to never have to go there ever again!

I realized that when I started at NAIT I would hate driving to school and hate taking the bus to school, and in all honestly I really have been lucky that it didn't really start snowing until two weeks ago so driving hasn't been that big of a pain except for going there 3 nights a week after work every single week.

I'm so sick of the Northside!! Forget it!

Twice in one day

You are lucky for me to post again today.

AND SO AM I LUCKY!!!

Lookit!! ZERO has arrived, big ole ZIPPO!!


No more days until the end of school!! Yippiee!

PaintShop "Pro"

So my sister is quite the PaintShop pro... she draws beautiful drawings of how she backed into the most amazingly tight parking stall in their downtown parking garage between two dualie trucks parked on the stall lines. This was all on company time, including the parking, as a test of her driving skills when she goes out to represent the company.

Our client also thinks he is a PaintShop pro. He asked for the design drawings, or "skins" as he likes to call it and of course we can provide him with my design drawings, they are however CS3 design documents. I asked him if he had a way to edit Photoshop documents and he replied with "pfft! of course, I have PaintShop Pro". As if to say...Don't you know it!

Well, then. We will provide you with the "skins". And good luck with that!

Weird kids

My group at NAIT was an odd batch of people.

• One guy took out his insoles and played around with them during our group discussions,
• One guy walked into a plate glass window because he thought it was a door,
• One guy would always say yes yes yes and afterwards we would realize he didn't understand a word we said... much like how when we wanted him to pay attention we'd have to say his name three times before he'd clue in that we were talking to him -- like he fell into day dreams the minute he didn't have to pay attention, and
  
• One guy who quit his job because he felt he would get fired and would go AWOL every time we had a deadline because he felt like a failure, except we couldn't get him to understand he was one of our best coders.

Now he is trying to become a bus driver instead of IT because he feels like such a failure. If you can't believe in yourself, no one else will.

Nosewhistlers and loud chewers and non-stop talkers

Are on notice.

How to spot an internet dork

Refers to the design of a website as a "skin".

Our client is a dork.

More hilarity ensues

I forgot my password for my laptop. The one I bought a year and a half ago and have logged into at least five times a day since then.

Same laptop.
Same password.
Same brain? I think not.

Fo'gettin'

It started before the shoes. I wonder when it will end? Yesterday I left my purse behind.

For Shell

I have no idea why the English language seems to be so difficult to learn. My guy who had the "brown users" instead of bronze members cannot seem to say For Sale. Today I realized that he kept referring to his own page in our project, which he had named ForSell. For selling stuff. Duh. So no wonder he kept getting it wrong.

Microsoft, by the way, sucks for rendering CSS in Visual Studio. I have no idea how they cannot have photos and pages connected the way Dreamweaver does so that if you rename or delete it, it renames or deletes all the references, OR tells you that you should not delete it. Kind of like when you rename a page it doesn't rename the code behind so all your files get mixed up. It's a feature, I guess.

Kind of like our social networking photo website project that has a huge button on every page that says "DELETE" and when you click it, it says "Are You for true To Delete every Photos?"

Forgetting

I forgot my credit card and earrings at the hair dresser.

Biggest dork ever?

This afternoon I was getting my hair cut when I realized I'd walked out of the house wearing two different shoes.

WTF??

"The value must be a number less than infinity."
No shit, and, well that narrows it down.

IM

IM is brilliant and dangerous. Tonight working on school work with a bunch of people I got a message from one of the guys about a massager... awkward!

Tires

Did I tell you when I lost the bolt on the link stabilizer bar (I have no idea what i'm talking about except the part that makes the tire stick on to the car and makes horrible knocking noises if it should happen to be missing such was my case) my dad investigated and said "it should be fine. I would be almost certain to say it isn't a hazard to other motorists. But wear your seatbelt. Juuuuust in case."

I regularly have tire anxiety. And is it any wonder?

Occupational Hazard #2

"Hello, I'm the new girl in IT."

Responses:

• "Oh. Do you think if I brought in my home computer you could fix it for me?"
• "I'm getting a strange process at home that won't let my computer shut down, it's called govacations or getsmart or something like that. Do you know it?"
• "I need MS Office but I don't want to pay for it, do we have any free copies at work I could have for home?"
• "Can you recommend an anti-virus for my home computer?"

Occupational Hazards

Librarian: "I haven't read anything since high school. *hyuck hyuck!* "
>:(

Web Design: "If you have any questions you should ask me because I do webs 'n shit *hyuck hyuck!*"
>:(

Network Admin: "I don't know anything about computers *hyuck hyuck!*"
>:(

Happy Birthday to me!

After I ran out of clean socks this morning I happened to find a basket of clean clothes in the corner of my room! Happy birthday to me indeed!

600th post

I was trying to figure out a really amazing post for my 600th post on this blog but I haven't come up with something.

Luckily my sister sent me this first thing this morning:

I can hear someone's nose whistle from where I am... yet no one is sitting close to me at the moment.....

Solved the problem.

The thing in manufacturing is that if it doesn't work you go get a bigger hammer.

When computers don't work it's one of a million different reasons but usually the problem is who is sitting in front of the screen.

Gigantic Zucchinni's

Goatmeal Cereal

I know someone who takes a sharpie and puts a "G" in front of the word oatmeal on her morning cereal. For giggles.

Hihowarya?

After "hi" sometimes I forget to say nice things to people when I talk to them on the phone before I launch into the reason why I'm calling. Things like "having a good day?" and "what's the weather like where you are?" Some of my family find this trait annoying and most find it hilarious. My only redeeming quality is that my "hi" is usually "hi how are ya?" or "hi how's it goin'?" Yesterday I realized that when I met a German person I said "hihowarya."

Snow White

The people here are super funny -- the internet is still a magical place. Today I had three hysterical voicemails when I got back to my desk from the server room but one of the younger guys had already dealt with the lady who's outlook was as she called it "possessed" or she needed a new keyboard -- turns out she'd had a freak-out so bad this guy had gone to help her deal -- she was swearing and mashing her hands on the keyboard but nothing would come up on screen...

White font.

Yep.

True story.

How to quit your job: a primer

1. Pull the fire alarm daily.
2. Eat other people's lunches. In front of them.
3. Steal money.

How not to quit: hand in a reasonable resignation letter and get sent back to your desk to "really really think about it." Then, after lunch, go and reiterate your desire to leave and get sent home "to really really think about it" overnight.

At my parents

M: I get the phone because no one cares to answer it and it's my grandma's half-sister's cousin's daughter whom I've never met on the phone to ask if I'll go out with her son.
A: Yup, been there, done that!
M: It's not like we're related or anything... Oh wait. YES IT IS.
A: Well you gotta keep it in the family! :)

On my crackberry

I'm in Home Depot with my dad and there's all this annoying, repetitive tapping/hammering going on. I peek through the stock to see what is going on and it's a group of Asians building birdhouses. It was funny, is all.

Servers

I called for help this week and was sent probably one of the smartest Server guys a person could hope for. We ended up building a server from parts to be quick about it. To be perfectly frank: I got to install the CD drive and he built practically everything else.

At some point he was looking for pliers in my toolkit and not finding any, mentioned that I needed to go get some -- so I dug around in my purse and pulled out my little tool and he was quite astonished by that magic. A while later when we were plugging in the new server into the rack he needed a mirror and a flashlight to be able to see where he was plugging it into. Neither of which I had.

"Really? You have pliers in your purse but no makeup compact?" Hehehehe, yup.

So we made do with the back of a CD and a lighter.
In a server room, that inexplicably has no redundancies.

Shepard's Garden

Driving down 66th Street past the fire hall with a classmate he points out the Shepard's Garden high rise under construction. Recently, he informed me, he had looked at buying a place in this new high rise but they didn't seem to be for sale only for rent. Astonished I informed him that they were an extension of the seniors' manor and lodge next door and they were definitely only available to old people. "Hm, that makes sense, they had a nurse on staff 24/7 and you could take your meals in the cafeteria..."

FAIL

To truly appreciate the joke here you might need to click on the picture to see it full sized. Notice the caution sign on the left hand side in particular...

What is a negative number?

Lunch and learn instruction on General Ledgers:

Q: What is a GL? Otherwise known as a general ledger? Well, to understand GLs we have to first understand negative numbers. What is a negative number? I'll draw it like a ladder with steps going up...
*draws*
Well actually, it's more like a hill... with steps... going up...
*erases* *draws*
Well actually, maybe it is more like a ladder...
*redraws*
There! Now you need to understand negative numbers to understand Debits and Credits, for when you take money out of one account you can wind up with a minus, but really it's a plus somewhere else, or it could be one of several plusses and minuses in several GLs even if it's still a plus or minus in your account or a minus or a plus in several GLs!

Clear as mud?

It's funny how you can tell when people are explaining things that were difficult for them to grasp so they have little understanding that everyone else might have understood negative numbers when they were introduced to us in Grade 2 and when GLs were covered in Accounting in High School. By very latest when you had your own bank account with overdraft coverage you understood debits and credits. It really IS like a hill! You keep working and working like you're trudging up a steep hill but you keep getting further and further behind, the first step is your overdraft, the second is your credit card, the third is your...

Q: How can I make an ugly car uglier?

A: Stick beads on it!

Smells like a horse with the hiccups

At a hotel in Calgary this weekend we were waiting for the elevator when some loudly chatting Germans came in to the lobby to wait with us. They went on talking about downloading their pictures of their adventures to their computer, completely oblivious that we were in fact spying on their conversation. I remember being impressed because they spoke a certain elegant slang and when I turned around to gawk the woman was Asian. It's surprising, that's all.

We all get on the elevator and as they're getting off the woman complains to her friend "I can't wait for a shower! I smell like a horse!" and added as an afterthought "... with the hiccups!"

My cousin and I couldn't even look at each other until the doors completely closed after which we translated the hilarity for the others in the elevator.

At the wedding reception in the evening we told this story at our table to the absolute astonishment of the rest of our cousins. One of which is a trail riding guide who confusedly informed us "...but... horses don't get the hiccups!" And the laughter exploded again.

Wedding fun

I found this hilarious site that deliberately misspells everything.

Girls = $$$

Went to a wedding this weekend and got into a discussion with some people.

Guy #1 remarks "man, it sure is expensive to date, girls cost so much money."
Guy #2 "you got that right man."
Guy #1 now bolstered says "yeah, it's at least a hundred bucks every time you take one of them out."

Me, thinking I've been royally gypt, pipe up "What? A hundred dollars? What kinds of girls and where are you taking them??"

Guy #1 "well dinner and a movie, that's a hundred bucks. More depending on how much of a good time you want to show her."
Guy #2 with an eyeroll glumly responds "Dude, it's more like thousands."